A large consumer demand exists for listening to, and/or viewing media content. Such media content is readily available from a multitude of sources. Consumers desire a quality experience when they watch and/or listen to such media. Further, consumers appreciate a single versatile consumer device that can perform multiple functions and still provide a quality user experience.
A personal computer (PC) provides a versatile platform for viewing and/or listening to media. The PC obtains the media, parses it into audio data and video data as appropriate. The PC then decodes the media, and renders the data for presentation to a user such as through a display device and/or speakers. The PC utilizes software-based components alone or in combination with hardware components to decode and render the media. The PC platform's software-based configuration is versatile since it is adaptable to playing various media formats. Further, as new formats are developed, the PC can be updated to handle the new formats. Often such updating can be done automatically with little or no user effort. Other platforms, such as hardware-based platforms, are less versatile as they are ‘configured’ upon manufacture and may have no or limited such capabilities.
This versatility of the PC has led to great consumer acceptance. However, in order to leverage its versatility, the PC platform has given priority to various design parameters over others. For example, in instances where audio samples are acquired from a live source, audio rendering on existing PC platforms may not have the ability to coordinate an audio hardware render rate with an audio sample capture rate. Any difference between the two, however minute, becomes significant over extended play times, if unchecked.
For example, in an instance where audio samples are captured from a live source such as from terrestrial, cable, or satellite Radio or TV broadcasting systems, the drift between source clock and audio render hardware clock may eventually become so great that some audio samples have to be thrown away or silence has to been inserted into the live audio stream. Such a scenario can produce a less pleasing user experience. Further, on PC platforms where the audio rendering component renders based upon its own clock which often may not be synchronized with the media source or the video rendering components, a scenario may occur where the audio presentation is out of synchronization with the corresponding video presentation to such an extent as to be easily noticed by a viewer. Such scenarios are exacerbated by long play times such as playing a movie or when viewing a single TV channel for long durations.
As technology progresses, consumers desire the flexibility offered by the current PC's software based platform combined with increased image and/or sound quality to fill an ever expanding niche of consumer devices and scenarios.